Reviews by IronLover:

Bottled in 2010. Amber orange in color with a thick, viscous look. Poured with a short white foam that quickly reduced to thin wisps. Dark fruit, sweet sugary malt and toffee aromas are prominent with butter and boozy notes at the back end. A quick rush of carbonation up front followed by a smooth slightly oily feel through the middle and tangy, boozy heat at the end. Dark fruit flavors up front with toffee flavors added through the middle. Tangy bite in the middle leads candied orange and chardonnay-like pear flavors. Finishes dryly with a tangy, slightly tart fruitiness along with undeniable, but mellow boozy heat. (624 characters)

More User Reviews:

Pours a murky orange/brown color with a nice sticky head,aroma is malty and buttery with light alcohol notes.Taste is malty and lightly sweet with some burnt fruit flavors ending with a nice buttery taste that lingers in the mouth.Dogfish Head is becoming my favorite east coast brewery (have yet to visit Victory) they pull no punches and make some really good,interesting brews. (380 characters)

Appearance  This one is light-colored for a BW. Its orange and hazy with a moderate head.

Smell  This DFH offering has a light, fruity aroma that reminds me of a pear-based white wine that I had once in Temecula. Its very delicate but hardy at the same time. The ABV is huge at the nose.

Taste  The malty white wine flavors come out more so at the taste. This one has a lot of raw sugar to it as well. Its very sweet with a solid, helpful malt base. The big grapes and fermented sugars rule the roost of this flavor profile. Theres a typical DFH hop balance that signs the brewerys name to this ale.

Mouthfeel  This is medium to full-bodied with some actual carbonation, which is unusual for the style. It has a nice, fluffy mouthfeel.

Drinkability  This is a big ABV monster in its rawest form, although I would guess that this would diminish with cellaring, which is probably highly recommended. In its purest form this one will give you hop burps and a hangover. (997 characters)

Pours a dark-amber, almost maroon-like color, a bit hazy and cloudy; small off-white head reduced to a ring around the glass quickly and didn't leave any notable lacing. Smell was strong and very in-your-face - dried, dark fruits; figs, plums, raisins soaked in alcohol. Boozy, but not quite leading you to think it's a 15%-er. Some sweetness and caramelized sugar notes abound as well. Taste is full of caramel and toffee malts all around; fruity and sweet with figs and plums and some other fruits that I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe a hint of licorice. Alcohol is warming and apparent; doesn't quite feel like 15%, but it's certain strong and induces sipping rather than gulping. Some hops here and there, may be hard to detect at first over the abundance of malt, but they are a dry, ashy, slightly floral in flavor. Aftertaste is full of burnt sugar, date sweetness, and a touch of toffee and alcohol. Medium-thick body, almost syrupy; sticky, abrasive, low carbonation.

Pretty good American barleywine from DFH. Certainly not anything groundbreaking here, but at 15$ a 4-pack, it's certainly not a bad choice. (1,123 characters)

S: A rich malty, raisiny smell with a surprisingly subtle perfume alcohol aroma. The alcohol may be masked by the malt sweetness. There is a slight umami and no diacetyl.

T: A smooth raisin and almost maple syrup with out the sweetness sort of taste going on having a very noticeable alcohol presence. The medium-high hops bitterness takes over next with an orange peel like fruity flavor that seems pithy from the bitterness. The balance is bitter with the bitterness and pithiness lingering long into the after taste. The finish is slight off-dry.

M: There a bunch of heat from the first sip but it doesn't seem to impacting me this far in. Te body is medium-full with moderate carbonation.

O: A much more subdued beer than the one I encountered almost five years ago though I do rather enjoy the huge hops bill that this enormous malt foundation provides when young. It's worth aging a couple years but I review a younger bottle at some time as this isn't an entirely fair score for this beer that while built to last shows better in its youth.Bottled On 11/21/2008 (1,161 characters)

T: coating malt and sugar up front, vanilla, white grapes, delicate and delicious vinous quality. malt coats mouth with nice balance of sugar and substance. hints of spice on the back of the throat. alcohol really comes out as the beer warms, but is extremely balanced at 15%. finishes warm reminiscent of rum, then dries leaving the palate begging for more.

T-M- Taste is as good as i expected by the smell. A beautiful bouquet of fresh grassy hops, thick malty backbone, revved up alcohol content and massive brown sugary thickness. Excellent. I love the mouthfeel of the dogfish neon capped beers. Bold thickness of tons of malt and alcohol put together perfectly to give you that lasting danky sweet feel on the tongue. A true boozer beer that only impresses.

D- I'm going to buy a four pack of this stuff from my local beer store... wouldn't recommend drinking more that a few though. Easy to drink. Use caution. (969 characters)

Murky darkish amber. Pours with an admirably sized head for a beer of this ABV. The nose is hugely sweet, but sharp, almost spicy from the massive alcohol content. Big sugar alcohols. Mead-like. Some notes of baked apples. Solvent-like. Acetone (yes, nail polish remover.) The booze actually burns the eyes as the vapors rise. Dark rum-soaked raisins. Cherries. Flavor hits with a rush of hot booze, like ultra-octane apple cider, dark cherries, fig jam, vodka-infused plums, tej/honey-wine-like notes... Shit... this is boozy in all kinds of ways. Spiked maple syrup... There's a late tannin-like astringency that sticks all over the tongue and ushers in the finish, which wraps things up with grape skins, chewed lemon seeds, blonde tobacco, and alcohol burn/heat, and an indefinitely-lasting acetone impression and burn. No lie, this is like nail polish remover in the aftertaste. This batch was bottled November 2008. Reviewed 11 months after bottling. Still very, very hot. I will wait at least 2 years before trying my next bottle. I've had vintages from 2006 or so, when they were still young, and I recall enjoying them much more than this one. Interesting for the shock factor, but this was not a pleasurable experience. There's extreme, and then there's mischief. This beer seems to be headed toward the latter. An odd juxtaposition with the vintage imagery and "olde school" reference in the name--this is not olde school. Nor is it new school. This is out of control do-it-yourself "home school" where you spike your beer with liquor to create a homebrew beer cocktail (while your girlfriend takes off her nail polish...) (1,633 characters)

I had two of these left from when I bought them around the time the bottle is dated. I decided to drink one now.. the other will age some more. I've had it fresh but this review is of the 13month aged bottled.

A- Looks a little something like Apple Cider with no head to speak of.

S- Strong smell of booze but with a sweet note that makes it quite nice.

T- Nice flavor that's almost surprisingly sweet but boy does it burn. Even after a year of aging this beer bites back.

M- The beer is hot but the flavor doesn't linger.

D- 15% abv makes this a pretty hefty beer but it doesn't show as much as other brews. It's clear that it is a strong beer but it doesn't lower the drinkablility much at all. That said, it is a high alcohol beer so it isn't one to shotgun by any means.

I'm not a huge barleywine follower but I will be excited to open up the last one of these from this pack. Definetly worth trying. (933 characters)

It was with some trepidation that I tried this beer. The 15% ABV was a bit intimidating, as was the advice on the label of the 12oz bottle to pour it into two snifters and enjoy. Nevertheless, I soldiered on. The beer was a red/orange color with virtually no head. It had a predominately fruity aroma, banana and raisin. A little caramel. Robust taste. The alcohol was noticeable without being intrusive, and quite warming. I found it to be quite drinkable, as long as it's 6 to 12 ounces at a time. (499 characters)

12oz brown bottle. Packaging date is unreadable. Beer pours bright copper-ish, initially, topped with a very tight white foam head that settles to an even lace with stick along the glass. Appearance quickly becomes cloudy due to unfiltered dregs in the bottle.

Candied fruits, toffee, diacetyl and apples in the nose.

Extremely smooth as the first sip coats the palate with a near syrup-like texture. Bold ripe dark and candied fruits punch out with notes of apricot and raisin. Notes of orange, too. Spicy alcohol stings the palate with an immediate warming effect and vodka-like presence. Sweet with toffee and a sugar-like presence. Loads of apple-ish flavors and feel on the palate with pear and pear skin beneath. Finish dries up a bit.

Alcohol is a bit over-the-top and assertive, but other than that it's a fairly solid Barley Wine. Definitely worth a try. (872 characters)

Bright amber, slightly cloudy, chance of snow, with a persistent head and a fruity/alcoholic nose.

Starts out really fruity - full of ripe apricot, pear, and sort of tropical (mango? pineapple? Something from the South Pacific) flavors with a yeasty undertone, some toffee/caramel sweetness, and a balancing hop spice/alcohol warmth that makes it VERY quaffable. The finish gets warmer, and that's the only time that you'll notice the alcohol. This is 15%?!?!? Wow. Cannot tell from drinking it. Danger, Will Robinson! Two of these will have you searching for license plates. Sneaky as hell.

A very, very tasty barleywine in the lighter color, fruity-malt vein. Hides its alcohol better than the Raison D'Etre, which is a bit more than half as strong. (757 characters)

It's a dark brown elixir, medicinal particles having settled to the bottom. It looks foreboding, even ominous. Having basically no head, a small swirl of carbonation slowly circles the cap. It's as opaque as mud, save the very bottom in which I see the solids have settled. This is serious.

The aroma is so unique. I consistently think of gumballs...not the fruity, twenty-five cent variety that kids clamor for, but a Willy Wonka, everlasting gobstopper sort of smell. It really smells sweetly concentrated. Smelling certainly isn't as menacing as looking at this sucker. There is a stark contrast between nose and eye, and the nose is actually better.

The taste is raw power and, like a fine wine, I'm sure this one improves as it mellows with time. Less than a year old (November bottling date), each sip packs a punch. I'd like to see some fool chug this. Maybe I'm missing something, but the taste is simple: it's sweet, sweet alcohol. I'm more familiar with English-style barleywines, but I'm wondering if the American variety is supposed to suggest a militaristic type of superiority. Maybe it has less to do with America (Happy Independence Day, regardless), and more to do with Dogfish Head.

As I mentioned, there's nothing overly complex about the liquid. It's sweet and, with the alcohol tinge, it tingles the cheeks. It feels more carbonated than it looks. I acknowledge, however, that it might be more burn I feel than tingly tickle. You have to feel it because you can't just swallow it down, so I have to say (at least for this young'n) that mouthfeel is a relative weakness.

Always tough to rate a big double-digit (15%er here) when it comes to drinkability. After each sip, you have to face that menacing appearance I've described above. As I make my way thru, I sometimes feel like my drink's mean-muggin' me. For sure, this is an appropriate selection to share. It's also neat (and strong) enough to make that worthwhile. (1,975 characters)